Wintertime usually arrives with a one-day delay from Vienna to Budapest. But what about the promotion of winter cycling? Compare this nice official approach of the city of Vienna vs. a different but still nice voluntary approach of a cycling advocate in Budapest! Although not considered to be official promotion, an important announcement was published by the BKK Centre for Budapest Transport today: Some 30 main roads, 60 crossings and 120 streets will be made cycling-friendly within the service area of Bubi until the scheme's introduction next spring. To be continued...
The final event of the PIP program was held in Wroclaw, Poland as part of the Innovation Festival.
On the last day of the festival I had the chance to introduce myself along five other Pioneers representing the different regions of the program. This was an excellent opportunity to sum up my experiences, motivation and results of my placements. I set up a rather personal presentation in order to bring the “spirit” of the program as well as the field of transport/mobility closer to the audience consisting of experts from representing various professions. Why I applied for the program? Because working locally for an „international” company like TRENECON-COWI often provides me with opportunities in learning about innovative mobility planning and management methods (like bike-sharing or car sharing), but most of the time the applicability of these are quite limited in a CEE environment. Although my enthusiasm and commitment towards life-long learning, sharing and knowledge transfer remains sky-high, we are still facing the lack of integrated smart mobility approach in CEE. Being a father of two I am well aware of the future of the youth that we are practically stealing by building cities for cars instead for people. With PIP I could put myself into different environments professionally, corporately, culturally to “test and prove” my different mindset. The new tasks and the positive feedback I received from my hosts gave me a fundamental boost for keeping up the good work! My domestic placement at REC was hosted by Greg Spencer, a great expert and well-known opinion-leader on the field of sustainable transport. A concrete result of my four-week activity is the Hungarian version of a handbook that was published in seven languages as a tool of the Mobile 2020 project in order to:
My work included the proofreading of the handbook. I was inspired by the feeling that I can make a step further after my former activity in the editor’s board of the infamous UME (Hungarian Design Standard). This time I had the chance to sink deeply into the so-important technical language of cycling-friendly planning and fine tune the text of a detailed professional material with perfectionism. Beyond that I proposed some changes for the editors (Csaba Mezei and Péter Szuppinger) and provided them with a great batch of photos and illustrations. It is so good to finish a job with satisfaction! My international host, MOVUS has got a real integrated approach with a full portfolio including the operation of a public bike-sharing and electric car-sharing service, transport planning and R/D. Thus the company has an effective influence onto mobility innovations and not only in the Valencia region. With the kind assistance and mentorship of Mauro Fiore, Isabel Espinós and Juan Bueno I got a deep insight into the company’s business activity. My consultancy was highly appreciated in relation with various activities of MOVUS on the field of sustainable mobility:
On the other hand I learned a lot about company culture and communication technics. The onsite experiences gave me a better understanding of transport system(s) I am working with as a planner. Juan Bueno is the spin doctor of MOVUS. He knows how to sell bike-sharing. He is aware of the fact that the only way forward is to make cycling trendy, fashionable and a common, daily activity. A discussion about the structure of the company, the different products and services prooved that MOVUS is doing a best practice integrating operation and consultancy on the field of sustainable transport.
Surprise task on the first day of the second part of my pioneership. A promotion of MOVUS is the bike rental service for PIPs. Julio (the staff peson in charge of logistics and operation) was vacant, so it was an ideal opportunity for me to test my practical skills on-site. A fleet of rental bikes were given out for an international group of pioneers.
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